Minerva Foods and Brazil meat peer Marfrig Global Foods have both confirmed an asset deal between the two parties has been approved by regulators.
Almost a year since the 7.5bn reais ($1.3bn) plant transaction was announced, in which Minerva was to buy a number of factories and facilities from Marfrig across four South American countries, Brazil’s competition authority has cleared a scaled down version, with conditions.
Revealed last August, the deal included 11 plants and a distribution centre in Brazil, three plants in Uruguay, a facility in Argentina, and a factory in Chile. However, the Uruguay portion was blocked by the country’s anti-trust regulator in May.
The rest of the transaction - Brazil, Argentina and Chile – was cleared by the Brazilian Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) on 9 August, the companies said in separate statements.
Marfrig explained that CADE has recommended the “approval of the transaction through the execution of a concentration control agreement, which requires a reduction in the material and geographic limits established in the expansion restriction clause set in the agreement, which will not alter the other terms and conditions set forth in the agreement and the transaction”.
Minerva added that the merger control agreement (ACC) “provides for the reduction of material and geographic limits established in the non-compete clause of the share purchase and sale agreement and other covenants signed between the company and the seller”.
Just Food has asked both companies to confirm what the reductions entail and to also clarify what other approvals – noted in each of the statements – are now required to get the deal completed.
Marfrig declined to comment beyond the details in the prepared statement.
“In addition to the final and unappealable decision of CADE, the closing of the transaction is also subject to the verification of the other conditions precedent provided for in the agreement, which regulates the acquisition of assets in Brazil, Argentina and Chile,” Minerva said.
The agreement between Minerva and Marfrig has attracted the attention of competition authorities because the companies are both meat giants in their own rights with a global presence.
Marfrig is the largest shareholder in Brazil-based poultry group BRF, which also controls US beef producer National Beef.
In 2022, Minerva acquired Uruguayan peer Breeders and Packers Uruguay from Japan’s Nippon Ham Foods Group. In a joint venture with Salic in Saudi Arabia, the two parties also struck a deal for Australian Lamb Company the same year.
